Natural disasters are a typical example of people living in conflict with the environment. The vulnerability of populated areas to natural disaster is partly a consequence of decades of spatial planning policies that failed to take proper account of hazards and risks in land use zoning and development decisions. Therefore it is critically important to bring together knowledge, technology and actors in the field of risk assessment and land use zoning to achieve more effective natural disaster prevention and mitigation.

The overall aim of ARMONIA is to provide the EU with a set of harmonised methodologies for producing integrated risk maps to achieve more effective spatial planning procedures in areas prone to natural disasters in Europe.

Objectives to be achieved by ARMONIA:

• Integration and optimisation of methodologies for hazard and risk assessment for different types of potentially disastrous events;
• Harmonisation of different processes of risk mapping in order to standardise data collection, data analysis, monitoring, outputs and terminology for end users (multi-hazard risk assessment);
• Development of a harmonised decision-making tool structure for applying hazard and risk mitigation through spatial planning in risk prone areas and development of a guideline on natural hazard mitigation in the context of the EU Environmental Assessment Directive (2001/42/EC).

ARMONIA will seek to achieve outcomes that can mitigate the adverse effects of natural phenomena, through the joint effort of the scientific community, technology experts and end users. The target is therefore not a solely scientific output, but a measurable impact on policies and practice for disaster mitigation which can be initiated within the period of the project. ARMONIA fits with Europe's goals regarding sustainable development and global governance, in supporting environmental and security policies, by facilitating and fostering the timely provision of quality data, information, and knowledge, developing tools and improving management practices.